


Days Made New

by servantofclio



Series: Chances and Second Chances [7]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Past Kaidan Alenko/Commander Shepard, blended families - Freeform, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-05-15 05:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 7,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5773012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the world nearly ends, there are new chances.</p><p>Drabbles and short fics set in the Second Chances universe, scattered around in the series chronology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All That I Have (Shepard/Kaidan)

**Author's Note:**

> These ficlets will probably make the most sense if you've read my fic Second Chances. 
> 
> But in brief, these stories deal with a timeline in which Renee Shepard marries Kaidan after the war and they have a son, while Garrus returns to Palaven, marries, and has a daughter. Years later, with both Kaidan and Garrus's wife now deceased, Shepard and Garrus reunite, rekindle their relationship, and set about raising their now-preteen children together.
> 
> In this chapter: Shepard is anxious about meeting Kaidan's family.

“What’s the matter?” Kaidan asked.

At least having a cane gave her something to fidget with. Shepard turned the handle around and around. “Nothing.”

He glanced over from his place in the driver’s seat. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’ll be fine,” she said, and knew she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “We can reschedule, if you want.”

“No!” She took a breath. “No, I mean, I have to meet your family sometime, it might as well be now.”

He snorted. “It’s not supposed to be an ordeal. They’re going to love you.”

She rolled her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see. Obviously, he was biased. Like _loving her_ was the universal reaction to her. She was really not sure she was very good daughter-in-law material.

“C’mon, you can tell me.”

Shepard sighed. “It’s just… I don’t know how much I bring to the table here. I’m retired, I’m still working on the walking thing, I just…”

“You don’t have to bring anything to the table but yourself.” His tone was firm.

Shepard bit her lip. “Look, I don’t know how families work, okay? You know I don’t really have one.”

“Yeah, I know.” He took one hand off the controls and touched her knee. “That’s why I want to give you mine.”


	2. Bad Little Turian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New dad Garrus and a midnight baby feeding.

Garrus woke up to a thin, reedy cry; beside him, Melia made a grumbling sound and rolled over into the pillows. He’d always been the lighter sleeper. He hauled himself out of bed -- it was still full dark out -- and made his way across the hall. The baby’s cries subsided into chirps and clicks as he came into the room. “What’s the matter, little one?” he murmured. “Hungry?”

She chirped and waved her little hands. Garrus scooped her up and she nestled against his chest with a sigh. He held her there while he stumbled around the kitchen, warming up her food, before sitting down on the couch to try to get her to eat it. As usual, she was a lot more interested in wriggling around and playing with her toes, or tugging on his mandibles, than eating like a dutiful child. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that you’re a bad little turian,” he told her, while she blinked blue eyes up at him solemnly. She did eat a little of the nutrient-rich pap that turian infants needed after that, and then clung to his cowl with that unexpectedly strong grip, resisting all attempts to put her back down to sleep. “Fine,” he grumbled. “You can just sleep there for a while.” She settled down, and he watched her eyes drift closed.

The baby hardly weighed anything at all, but she was so warm and present that he found himself drifting off again. He tipped his head back against the back of the couch. It wouldn’t do any harm to close his eyes for just a moment…

He woke up to a flash of light and blinked several times, finding Melia standing over him with a grin. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

“Taking a picture,” she said. “The two of you are the most adorable thing I’ve seen in quite a while.”


	3. Mischief Managed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raising teenagers isn't easy.

“You realize they’re probably up to something,” Garrus said.

Renee Shepard smiled across the table. “Really? What makes you say that?”

“They’re teenagers. And they’ve been entirely too well-behaved lately.”

“Mmm.” He had a point; she’d expected that raising her teenage son would have its difficulties, but she hadn’t entirely anticipated what raising _two_ teenagers of different species would be like. “They’ve always been good kids,” she suggested. “Maybe all of that other stuff was a phase.”

David was fourteen now and Lexa thirteen. In the last three months, David had had and lost two girlfriends (though he protested that they “weren’t really girlfriends, Mom, just friends”), Lexa had had a dramatic fight with her closest female friend (which she said was absolutely not about the friend’s current boyfriend), both of them had picked fights with their respective parent about rules, and they’d had so many squabbles between themselves that Garrus had threatened to force them to work it out through hand-to-hand combat. That had resulted in sulky apologies and two weeks of relative calm.

Garrus snorted. “Please. I _remember_ being that age.”

“Oh? And what did you and Solana get up to at that age?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Shepard grinned. “It’s nice to get out, just the two of us, though.” Between work and the kids’ activities, something like this, a leisurely lunch at a nice cafe on the Presidium for just them, was a rare event. She couldn’t quite remember who had suggested the idea of taking one of their days off and having an actual date. Adult time.

“True.” Garrus gave her a lazy grin back, looking entirely relaxed in spite of his parental suspicions, and that was a welcome change. He’d been harried and tense lately. Politics; there wasn’t any escaping it, but occasionally, like now, they could get a reprieve.

So they finished lunch and took a stroll along the Presidium, restored to its former pristine state, and called a skycab to go home when Shepard’s hip started aching.

The noise nearly hit them in the face when they opened the door to the apartment. Shouting. Several voices. Music. A smattering of gunfire, that had Shepard tensing and Garrus reaching for his sidearm, before they both realized it was the sound effects from a game.

They stepped into the living room and took in the scene. David and Lexa face to face, mid-argument; a couple of David’s friends gathered around the game console; one of Lexa’s friends standing behind her, looking awkward, and a few other friends either watching the show or unsure whether to take sides.

They looked at each other. “I told you they were up to something,” Garrus said.

Shepard sighed.


	4. Do Not Disturb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just after the two families have moved into a new apartment together (so, very shortly after Second Chances ends)

“This is _my_ room, Lexa.” David stood in the door to his room in their new apartment, blocking the way. It was _his_ room and he hadn’t gotten it the way he liked yet, and he didn’t need Lexa in there moving his stuff around before he even finished unpacking. “You have your own room, you don’t have to sleep in mine any more.”

When Lexa got mad, her mandibles quivered even though they were tight to her jaw. “Fine!” she snapped, and stormed off to her own room, just down the hall.

Half an hour later, David heard her door bang again and stuck his head out to see what she was doing. She’d stuck a sign on it that said:

LEXA’S ROOM

KEEP OUT

DAVID THIS MEANS YOU

and then she’d put a picture of him, too, with huge eyes and hair sticking out everywhere.

“What are you two doing?” Mom came down the hall and saw the sign. Her lips twitched. “Oh, dear.”

David scowled. “My hair doesn’t look like that. Lexa!”

“Yeah,” Mom said, “because artistic critique is the problem here.”


	5. Puzzle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just the kids working on a jigsaw puzzle. Tiny bit of fluff.

“What’s this?” Lexa asked, turning the box over and over in her hands.

David glanced up, noticing the rattle. “It’s a jigsaw puzzle.”

“What’s it for?”

“You just put the pieces together and it makes a picture, like on the cover.”

“Huh.” She kept turning the box around, the pieces sliding and rattling inside the box.

“We used to do them a lot before—when Dad was around. I forgot we still had them.”

David was sort of frowning, and Lexa wasn’t sure if that meant he was mad, but she was curious about what the puzzle was like. “Can I open it?”

He shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

She hesitated for a moment before she opened the box, full of a litter of brightly-colored, funny-shaped pieces.

“You have to sort them out,” David said, “and spread them out somewhere so you can see them all.”

She emptied the box out onto the floor and started moving pieces around. Two of them fit together, and she saw, suddenly, how they were supposed to fit. Soon they were both absorbed in working on different corners of the puzzle.

“What are you two so quiet about? You’re supposed to be doing chores—oh.” David’s mom stopped when she saw them.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Lexa, feeling guilty.

“It’s okay.” She smiled a little. “It’s nice to see it get some use. Just make sure Rusty doesn’t get the pieces, okay?”


	6. Massage Therapy (Shepard and Garrus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this one was "a fluffy massage" from mynameiscloud on tumblr; really just an ordinary day in the life.

Renee Shepard was only vaguely aware of the apartment door opening and closing, until Garrus called her.

“Shepard? Are you home?”

“I’ll be done in a minute,” she called back without looking away from her screen. She’d been at this all day, chasing down trail after trail in a pile of reports, and she’d just about amassed evidence she was satisfied with for connections between illegal weapons shipments, the batarian civil war, an asari extremist group, and holes in C-Sec’s own accounting. She was close, and she wanted to make this case airtight.

“Where are the kids?” Garrus asked from the doorway behind her.

“David and Lexa went to a biotiball game with their friends,” Shepard said, frowning at the data in front of her. “You’re home already?”

“I’m home half an hour late, actually. When was the last time you took a break?”

“Umm…” She glanced at the time and winced at the movement pulled at her neck and shoulders. “… okay, it’s been a while, probably too long.”

“Uh-huh,” Garrus said dryly, with all kinds of reverberating undertones that probably said “look what I have to put up with.” He approached and touched the back of her neck. “May I?”

Shepard sighed and saved her work. “Go ahead.”

When she was this stiff, it was sometimes painful to be touched at all. She really had overdone it this time; it was easy to lose track of time when the kids didn’t come straight home after school. She’d be paying for it tonight, and probably tomorrow too.

Garrus knew what he was doing, though, kept his touch light and gentle, smoothing along the back of her neck and her shoulders until she relaxed a little, letting her chin fall toward her chest and her shoulders drop. Only then did he increase the pressure, working at the muscles knotted from too long staring over an endless array of spreadsheets and intelligence reports. Shepard groaned a little as the painful tension faded.

She mumbled, “Whoever would have thought the turian councilor’s adviser would be such a great massage therapist to a lowly intelligence analyst?”

Garrus chuckled. “Actually, you’re an excellent intelligence analyst. Tarbodian says she’d poach you in a minute if she could.”

Shepard blinked. “Really?” Tarbodian was head of Hierarchy Intelligence on the Citadel. Garrus respected her immensely. Shepard had met her a couple of times and had been a little intimidated by the woman’s obviously keen intelligence.

“Really. You’re good at whatever you do, Shepard. Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.” She pushed herself out of her chair, carefully, since her bad hip was still stiff. Garrus stepped back and let her, but was there with a hug once she had her feet. Shepard accepted it gladly, stretching her arms around Garrus’s solid chest and turning her head to rest her cheek against the familiar thick fabric of his suit. “Welcome home,” she murmured.

With one ear to his chest, she could hear his voice rumbling pleasantly when he spoke. “If the kids won’t be back for a while, shall we order dinner in?”

“Sounds great,” Shepard said with a smile. Her report could keep until morning.


	7. Offer Me (Lexa and Shepard)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa has something for Shepard.

“Ma’am? Um, ah, Renee?”

Renee Shepard turned around with a smile to find Lexa fidgeting in the doorway, her backpack danging from one hand. She was glad Lexa was coming around to calling her by her first name. While the turian girl’s politeness was charming, it seemed out of place when they were all living in the same household. She’d never ask Lexa to call her _mother_ , but first names seemed perfectly appropriate.

Lexa was having a little difficulty with the transition, though. To tell the truth, her nervousness reminded Shepard more than a little of Garrus, back when she’d told him he could call her _Shepard_ instead of _Commander_. “Do you need something, Lexa?”

“No… that is, I…” Lexa faltered and rocked her weight from one foot to the other. “I got you something.”

“You did?” Shepard wracked her brain to remember if she was missing some kind of holiday. Her birthday wasn’t for another month. A turian holiday, maybe? “You didn’t have to do that, honey.”

“I know, but I wanted to, I… here.” Lexa shut her mouth and pulled a box out of her backpack. Shepard took it, bemused. She apparently hadn’t had any wrapping paper, because she’d wrapped it in drawing paper that she’d decorated herself in wild abstract patterns. Mindful of this, Shepard didn’t tear the paper but opened it carefully, flattening out the paper as she went. Inside she found a boxed ready-to-assemble ship model, one of the new frigate lines developed from the _Normandy_ ’s design.

“Dad said you used to have models,” said Lexa, with a bit of a nervous warble. “So I saw it in the shop and I thought of you…”

“Thank you, Lexa, that’s really sweet,” Shepard said, turning the box around. It had been a while since she’d done one of these. “Do you want to help me put it together?”

Lexa lit up and bounced on her toes. “Oh yes!”

Shepard grinned and held out her arms, and was gratified when Lexa immediately flew into them, her thin arms hugging tight. “Let’s open it up and see what we have, then.”


	8. Invite Me (Garrus and David)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some one-on-one bonding for Garrus and David.

On his dad’s birthday, David liked to get out the old pictures and holos and his dad’s old medals. Ever since he could read, he liked to read the citations that went along with the medals, and remember the stories his dad had sometimes told about them. He had pictures that Gramma had sent of his dad when he was younger, growing up on the farm, and pictures of his dad all young and stiff in his Alliance uniforms. He had a holo of Dad’s Spectre initiation—he knew now that the whole thing had been rushed, because of the war, but he’d still taken the oath and everything—and he had some pics of Dad and Mom when he was little. It was funny to see how Mom looked younger, although when he was very young she sometimes looked tired and sad or bandaged from surgery. It was harder and harder to remember what Dad had looked like, except from the pictures, which kind of froze him in David’s memory.

This year, it was different, because they were in the new apartment, and in the morning Mom took Lexa off to do errands. He wondered if she’d forgotten what day it was—he usually looked at the pictures by himself, but it was nice to have her around if he wanted to ask her anything. He fidgeted around the apartment, restless, until Garrus stuck his head out of his office and asked, “Something wrong, David?”

“Uh… no.” He knew he hadn’t sold it from the look on Garrus’ face, and wriggled his toes against the rug. “It’s just, um…”

Garrus waited without saying anything. David sighed. “It’s my Dad’s birthday, and I usually look at the old pictures, but Mom’s not here, so…”

“Oh.” Garrus seemed to consider. “I think she’ll be back in a couple of hours. Do you need something else to do before then?”

David frowned. That sounded like incoming chores, but Garrus added, “He was a good man, David.”

“Yeah, I…” An idea suddenly struck him. “Would you look at them with me? I mean, you were there, too…”

Garrus’ mandibles flicked open. Startled, David thought. “I… yeah, of course, if you’d like.”


	9. Miles Between Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This installment backs up a long way, to the early days of Shepard's marriage to Kaidan.
> 
> The prompt, from ferociousqueak, was "things you said with too many miles between us."

Renee Shepard wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“Did you say Garrus is getting married?”

On her screen, Liara tilted her head, looking quizzical. “Yes? Didn’t you know? Oh, goddess, Shepard, I just assumed you knew!” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “It may have happened already, actually, Tali said he was going to, but turians don’t often have much of a ceremony, and you know how practical Garrus is…”

Shepard managed a tight smile. “It’s all right, Liara.” She looked ruefully down at her rounded, six-months-pregnant self. “I couldn’t have gone anyway. I’m sure my doctor would disapprove of interstellar travel at this stage.” She was lucky her doc hadn’t already insisted on bed rest, to be honest.

“Of course,” Liara said. “Still, I’m sorry, Shepard. I never dreamed you wouldn’t know.”

“Well,” Shepard said stiffly. “I’m sure he’s been busy.” And she’d been busy, she thought defensively. She and Kaidan hadn’t even been married for a whole year, and then she’d been pregnant, and she’d lost track of the various surgeries she’d had before that, or how much time she’d logged in physical therapy. 

Garrus hadn’t come to her wedding, either. She was willing to bet the Primarch was keeping him busy on Palaven, though. 

And okay, fine, it was a little awkward to get invited to your ex’s wedding. Just like it was also awkward to not even know about your ex’s wedding. 

“Do you know anything about her?” she asked.

Liara’s eyebrows arched up. “Shepard. Look who you’re talking to.”

Shepard laughed in spite of the grouchy feelings still swirling around in her head. “Yeah, okay, fair enough.”

“Her name is Melia Tintorix,” Liara said. “She’s a doctor. She has several commendations for meritorious service, including two as a field medic during the war, and is at a very honorable citizenship tier.”

“Huh,” Shepard said. Smart, and courageous. That sounded right for Garrus, if he was… well, she really couldn’t begrudge him being with someone else, could she? She was married to Kaidan. She didn’t have any claims on Garrus any more. 

“Do you know how long they’ve been seeing each other?” Shepard asked, curious.

“I could, but that would require some actual digging, Shepard.” Liara’s wide blue eyes gazed earnestly through the screen. “Do you want me to?”

“Oh, no,” Shepard said hastily. No way was she going to ask Liara to use the Shadow Broker’s sources for something trivial like that. “I’ll just ask Garrus the next time I talk to him,” she said breezily.

“Right.” Liara sounded a little dubious. Shepard couldn’t blame her. Obviously she didn’t talk to Garrus often enough, or none of this would have come as a surprise.

“I’ll send them a wedding present or something,” she added.

“Turians don’t really do wedding presents, Shepard,” Liara said gently.

“Well, a card, then. Or I’ll call and congratulate him. Them.”

“That sounds lovely,” said Liara. “You’re doing well, though.”

“Yep.” Shepard patted her rounded abdomen. “We’re all doing well over here.”  
Liara signed off with a friendly farewell, and Shepard’s smile faded as soon as the screen went dark. Garrus was getting married, and he hadn’t even told her. 

Not that he had to tell her things, but it was the principle of the thing.

What that principle was, she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

In some grand cosmic joke, she got the formal announcement of the event the next day.

She stared at it, biting her lip. There wasn’t any added personal message, just a simple, formally worded announcement. But, well. She could reply, couldn’t she? Or call. She could do that, just like she’d told Liara she would. She checked her omni-tool, trying to work out the time in Cipritine. It wasn’t even an inappropriate hour there. She could call, right now, and wish him well, like a friend. 

She placed the call before she could talk herself out of it, and waited. Only then did it occur to her that Garrus’ access code might have changed, or he might not be in Cipritine at all, but somewhere else in the Hierarchy entirely, or… hell, for all she knew, his new wife might answer.

Before she could cancel the call, the image flickered to life, and there was Garrus at his desk.

“Hey, Shepard,” he said with some surprise.

A smile eased over her face. “Hey,” she replied.

Horizontal lines crawled across the screen, breaking the image up into wavering blobs of color. Shepard flinched. “We don’t seem to have very good visual.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Garrus said. The audio only wavered a little. “We’ve got a high concentration of dust in the atmosphere these days, and it screws up the signal sometimes.”

“Right,” Shepard said softly, remembering Palaven ablaze.

“What’s up, Shepard? Nothing’s wrong, I hope?”

“No,” she said, smoothing a hand over her belly. “No, everything… everything’s great. I just, um. I just got your announcement, and I wanted to say congratulations.”

“Oh!” For a moment, the screen was mostly clear, and Garrus looked… surprised, mostly, and happy. The signs were subtle, but Shepard still recognized the way his mandibles lifted in certain moods. He looked about as happy as she’d ever seen him. “Thanks, Shepard.” The screen dissolved into static, but the audio kept going. “Mely had to remind me to let people know, if you can believe that.”

Shepard smiled even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Somehow I can believe that.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, well, you know me.”

“I do,” she said softly. 

“And congratulations on the baby, too, I hope everything’s going well.”

“Everything’s great.” She folded her hands over her middle. Beneath her hands, there was a flutter of movement. “Listen, I just wanted to say—”

At the same time, Garrus said, “Sorry, but I’m supposed to go meet—”

They both stopped, and Shepard laughed. “I just wanted to say I’m happy for you,” she said. Somehow that kernel of resentment (jealousy, she could be a grown-up and name it) seemed to have faded.

“Thanks,” he said. The images on the screen jumped and wavered. “Maybe you’ll get to meet Mely sometime, I don’t know when we’ll next have leave time, but—”

“That would be great,” Shepard said, and meant it. “Let me know if you ever get out our way.”

“Will do. Take care of yourself, Shepard.”

The audio dissolved into static, too, and the connection cut out. “You too,” Shepard said to the empty screen.


	10. Relaxed (Shepard)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a tiny vignette for Renee Shepard.

Renee Shepard never relaxed easily. A legacy of her upbringing, she supposed; she was too used to looking after herself, to having to watch her own back, and her military career and everything that came with it trained her to keep alert. She didn’t think she’d actually relaxed for more than maybe a few minutes at a time the whole Cerberus mission, let alone the war.

Even after the war, there had been work to do and her son to care for, and it had taken a lot of effort for her to learn that she really could turn everything off, leave Kaidan and David to their own devices, and let herself go.

Two days after she and David and Garrus and Lexa moved into their new apartment, she informed Garrus she wanted an hour to herself, and he was responsible for whatever the kids wanted during that time.

A locked bathroom door, a bubble bath, a glass of wine, a book, and best of all, the privilege of not being the parent on call: she sank into the warm water with a sigh and let the tension ease out of every muscle.


	11. Cooperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Garrus are used to working as a team. But can they use that skill to handle their children?

“We’ve got to have a united front on this,” Shepard said.

“I totally agree,” Garrus said.

“That means that _you_ —” She reached out and poked him in the arm— “—have to resist the eyes!”

“What, Lexa’s eyes? I don’t—”

“No, _David’s_ eyes, you know he does that soft dark sad puppy-eyes thing to you when he thinks he can get around me.”

Garrus blinked for a moment and then said, “Ohhh.”

“So you have to resist,” Shepard insisted.

“That means you have to resist when she does that warble,” Garrus said. “I can hear the manipulation, but I don’t think you even realize she’s doing it.”

“I don’t—” Shepard stopped for a moment. “Oh. When her voice does that… that thing…”

“Like this,” Garrus said, and his subvocals did a sort of tremble when he said, “Shepard, please, can I.”

“Oh,” Shepard said. “You know what? It works better in her vocal range.”

Garrus scoffed. “Don’t even pretend you don’t think she’s cuter than I am.”

“You’re ruggedly handsome,” Shepard said, patting his mandible. “She’s smaller.” Although, at twelve, Lexa had shot up considerably, and was going through a lanky, awkward phase that was adorable in its own way.

“Hm,” Garrus said, but leaned into the touch.

“They’re teenagers, for chrissakes,” Shepard said, thinking of all the many ways their children had to manipulate them. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

“We’ve dealt with cadets and rookie cops and Reapers and the Council,” Garrus said. “We can handle this.”

“So, you’re going to go out there and tell them they can’t throw a dance party next weekend?” Shepard said, tilting her head.

“How about you go first, and I’ll back you up?” Garrus suggested. “Just like old times?”


	12. Empty Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, the kids leave home.
> 
> (Specifically, Lexa goes to start her turian service at age 15, a few years after Second Chances ends, and David subsequently joins the Alliance military at age 18, a bit later.)

The day after David left for the Academy, Garrus found Shepard in the living room with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I already straightened up the place,” she said, “and it only took me about ten minutes, instead of half an hour. And listen, do you hear that?”

Garrus concentrated, tilting his head. Nothing but the quiet buzz of lights and appliances, and the occasional soft whuff from the dog sleeping on his padded bed in the corner. “Hear what?”

“That’s what I mean,” she said. “It’s much too quiet around here. No vids, no games, nobody talking to his friends at all hours.”

Garrus had worried this was going to be hard for her. She’d been reconciled to the idea of David entering the Alliance navy for a while, but that didn’t mean she was enthusiastic, exactly, and he hadn’t been sure how she’d react to having her son leave home. He approached and put his hands on her shoulders. “I know we went through this when Lexa left, but—”

“I’m not having a breakdown or anything,” Shepard said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m just not sure what to do with myself.”

“Oh.” Time to adjust his approach, then. “In that case, I have some suggestions.”

Shepard smiled at the suggestive rumble in his voice. “Like what?”

“Vacation?”

She snorted and poked her finger into his chest. “You? Take a vacation? When was the last time I got you to take a day off?”

He shrugged and smiled back at her. “Maybe you didn’t ask nicely enough.”

“Oh, really?”

“We could, though,” he added; this was one of several contingencies he’d considered, and the half-smile still tugging at her mouth suggested she liked the idea. “I don’t have anything too urgent on the horizon. I can rearrange my schedule and we could take a week or two.”

“Hm,” she said. “Where did you have in mind?”

“Well, we get to Earth and Palaven often enough, but you know Tali’s been wanting us to come out and see how Rannoch is. Get some actual fresh air, see the scenery—” He shifted to slide an arm around her shoulders.

“Hm,” she said again, leaning into his side. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?”

“A little,” he admitted, shifting to slide an arm around her shoulders. “I thought a change of scene might be good for you. Both of us, really, but you said the house seems too quiet.”

Shepard smiled. “I should have known you’d have a plan.”

“I had some back-up plans, even, in case you didn’t like that one. We could throw a party, or we could head out to the Presidium for a rematch, or—”

She laughed out loud then, and the dog raised his head, blinking, and their home didn’t seem so empty, after all.


	13. Road Trip (David and Lexa)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last installment for now; the two kids, now teenagers, get out on their own for a bit.

“When you said, _road trip, just you and me_ ,” said David Alenko to his sister, “I didn’t think you meant _road trip on Palaven_.”

Lexa Vakarian grinned back at him from the driver’s seat of their vehicle. “What’s the problem? It’s scenic!”

"The problem is the extra radiation on your stupid homeworld, Lexa.”

“The car’s got radiation screening, don’t worry about it.”

David sighed. “Yeah, but when I get out I have to wear radiation protection, and it’s a drag.”

“Oh, quit whining. You were the one who kept griping about being stuck at home.”

The other problem with Palaven was it was _hot_ , and the skycar’s cooling system wasn’t quite keeping up with it. David leaned his head back against his seat and raised his middle finger in Lexa’s direction.

She laughed and snapped her teeth, letting her mandibles flare out.

“You’re totally not going to bite my finger off.” He let his hand fall limply to the seat.

“Nope. Levo proteins.” She put the car into gear and started off.

“Speaking of which, there is levo food where we’re going, right?”

“Right. It’s a lodge up in the mountains, one of the first ones to re-open after the war. It caters to alien visitors who want to see the cliffs and caves and monuments and stuff.”

“Sounds fancy.” David could see the mountains ahead through the window, looming steep and white above the plain they were driving on. A lot of the plain was still desolate, although plants had started growing in the ashy soil left over from the Reaper war, almost twenty years ago now. He’d been to Palaven a couple of times in the years since his mom and Garrus had been a couple, but it always made him uncomfortable to see how scarred the planet still was. There were places you could forget that, where the rebuilding efforts had concentrated, and then you got out into someplace like this, and the extent of the destruction really hit you in the face. It really was scenic, though. He had to give Lexa that much.

“Yeah, I might have dropped the names.”

“Really?” He lifted his head to look at her. “You know they hate it when we do that.”

Lexa shrugged, her mandibles closing in. “Well, Vakarian’s my name, too. I can’t very well help it if people ask who I’m related to. And what my dad and your mom don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“If they find out and get mad, it’s on you,” David said.

“Fair enough,” she said, and slanted a turian-style smirk at him. “Besides, I’m the legal adult around here. I think technically I’m responsible for you.”

“Okay, just for that, I’m going to _tell_ them you dropped their names to score a reservation.” Yeah, Lexa was sixteen, which was fully adult by turian standards, and he was seventeen, which was still underage by human standards. She was still younger than he was.

She clicked her teeth together. “What’s the word? Tattletale?”

"Seriously, Lexa, I can push you out of the car with my mind. Don’t tempt me.”

She laughed. “Watch yourself, David. I’m just going to have to insist on a reasonable curfew, since you’re so young.”

He reached out and punched her (lightly) on the arm. “Watch yourself, old lady.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said approvingly. “Anyway, it’ll be fun, we can explore in the mountains, and there might even be other humans at the lodge since they get a lot of alien guests.”

“Sounds cool,” David said. “How long’s your leave again?”

“Twelve days,” she said. “We’ve got three nights up in the mountains, and then we’ll keep driving and see more of Palaven.”

It really was fun, getting to spend some time with Lexa. He hadn’t seen a lot of her since she’d left to start her service a year ago. He’d been pretty much stuck at home finishing off his schooling, since he couldn’t join the Alliance until he was eighteen. It had been pretty dull around the house.

“Hey, Lexa,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you set this up,” he said.

She smiled back. Growing up next to her, he’d gotten good at reading turian expressions. “Me too.”

He recognized the warm thrum of sincerity in her subharmonics, too, and grinned back.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this was "things you said at the kitchen table." Set within a year after Second Chances.

“So are you doing your non-human cultures project with Danielle Lee?” Lexa asked one evening at the dinner table. 

David hunched his shoulders and paused in the act of shoveling down his dinner. “Yeah. We got assigned to each other. Who are you working with?” 

“Tonaxa Kalpius. We already made an outline and divided up the work.” 

David rolled his eyes. Lexa was super-organized about stuff like this, and Tonaxa was the same. Their project was going to be terrifyingly organized. He didn’t know nearly that much about Danielle. He was just hoping she was going to be okay to work with. “Yeah, yeah, you’re going to be great and perfect. Why did you want to know?” 

“No reason.” Lexa was treating her own food much more delicately. “Just, she likes you, that’s all.” 

He nearly choked on the next bite. “What? She does not! How would you even know that?” 

“She said so,” Lexa said matter-of-factly, examining her talons. 

David sputtered over that for a while. His mother took advantage to say, “Really. She told you that, Lexa?” 

“Wellll, not me exactly,” Lexa said. Across the table, Garrus coughed. Lexa went on, “She told Nyssa Wong, and Nyssa told me.” 

“And you trust your source of intel?” Garrus said. 

David glared impotently at both of them. Also his mother, who was covering her mouth with her napkin. He wasn’t fooled. She was laughing back there, he knew it. 

“Oh yes!” Lexa said brightly. “Nyssa’s always been reliable in the past. So far as I know. Besides, she told me so I could tell David so he could maybe ask her to next quarter’s dance or something—” 

“ _What?_ ” David yelped. 

“—and Nyssa wouldn’t make that up, she’s not mean like that.” 

“So what’s this girl like?” Mom asked. “Is she smart? Pretty? Do you like her?” 

“I’ve hardly even talked to her!” 

“I don’t know if she’s what humans consider pretty, I’m not very good at that.” Lexa went back to her meal, having thrown her grenade into the middle of the conversation. 

“Well? David?” Mom asked. 

“I don’t know! I guess so?” Danielle had a cute little turned-up nose and brown eyes, he’d noticed that. He didn’t even have that many classes with her! How could she have decided she liked him? “I think she’s ahead of me in science.” 

“She is,” Lexa chirped. David glared at her some more. She didn’t appear to notice. 

“So I guess she must be smart,” he finished glumly. 

“She’s new, isn’t she?” Mom asked. 

“Yeah, she only started at our school a couple months ago. I think her moms are Alliance diplomats or something.” 

Mom nodded. “Well, be sure to be nice to her.” 

“Mom!” David was outraged. Garrus chuckled. 

“What?” Mom asked. 

“We have to work together, of course I’m going to be nice to her.” David jabbed his fork into his mashed potatoes and scowled. “But it’s going to be _weird_ now. Thanks, Lexa.” He tried to kick her under the table for good measure, but she moved her foot away. 

“Why would it be weird?” 

“Because you just told me she likes me and I don’t know if I like her that way!” 

“I was just passing on the message,” said Lexa loftily, lifting her chin. 

David groaned. “Why couldn’t you just keep it to yourself?” 

“Because Nyssa said, will you tell David something if I tell you, and I said sure, and I _had_ to keep my word, so...” 

“You did not! That’s a dumb promise, what if she’d told you something awful or, or, a lie, or something?” 

“I remember when they used to like each other,” Garrus said to Shepard as their children’s voices got louder and louder. “Do you remember that?” 

“I do,” she said. 

Garrus heaved an exaggerated sigh. “This is probably our fault for moving in together, huh?” 

“Most likely,” she agreed. The kids would work it out. It was good for them, really. Just... a little hard on their parents. “Another glass of wine?”


	15. Truth is stranger than fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Would Garrus lie?

“Renee?” Lexa said one day. “You were around on some of Dad’s old missions, right?” 

“Some of them,” Renee Shepard said, looking up from slicing cheese for sandwiches. “Why?” 

Lexa looked as hesitant as Shepard had seen in quite a while. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Well,” she said. “You know how Dad tells stories.” 

Shepard chuckled, unbidden. “I’m familiar.” 

“Well,” Lexa said. Her fingers twitched. “I was just wondering, um. How much of it is true.” 

Shepard must have looked surprised, because Lexa added hastily, “I know Dad wouldn’t lie to me, not on purpose, but… he might… um…” 

“Embellish something to make it a better story?” Shepard suggested. 

Lexa nodded, her eyes darting to the side. “Yeah.” 

Shepard took a deep breath while she considered. She had heard Garrus tell stories to both of the kids – some of them a little bit exaggerated, most of them with the rough stuff smoothed out. She didn’t always know that for sure, but she presumed that when Garrus said “ _So one time I was tracking down a fugitive_ ,” and she was pretty sure what followed was an Omega story, that he was leaving a lot out. She wasn’t sure what else Garrus might have told Lexa about certain of his adventures. 

Especially, to be honest, the Omega adventures. And that whole episode really didn’t feel like it was hers to explain. 

“You know you can ask him about these stories,” she reminded Lexa gently. “Was there anything in particular?” 

“Oh… you know…” Lexa shrugged helplessly. “Like, he said he once killed three criminals with one shot, and he said he saw an ancient alien plant monster that spit out clones, and he said he’s been _inside_ a _Reaper_ , and he said he got to go to a krogan initiation rite even _before_ the war, when hardly anybody went to Tuchanka, and… you know. Stuff like that.” 

Shepard blinked. “Oh,” she said. “No, so far as I know, all that’s true.” 

“ _Really_?” Lexa’s voice was warbling all over in the subharmonics, and Shepard had to stifle a laugh. 

“Really,” she promised.


	16. Cooking together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by ferociousqueak. :)

“Could you hand me the gaxar?” Garrus asked.

 Renee Shepard reached to her left, picked up the green shaker without looking, and handed it to him. With her other hand, she stirred the vegetables around her sautee pan.

 “Thanks.” Garrus shook some of the turian spice into his own pot, took a taste, and added some more.

 “No problem. Check the rice cooker for me?” 

Garrus glanced at the timer. “Two minutes left.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Want me to take it out when it stops?” 

“No, it’ll turn itself off and be okay for a few more minutes. David,” she called, “dinner in five.” 

“Okay,” came a muffled shout. 

Renee took a taste and deemed the vegetables done. Picking up the pan, she asked Garrus, “Do you need this burner for anything?” 

“No, I’m good. Couple more minutes to simmer and this is ready to eat.” 

She turned off the burner and put the veggies in a bowl, quickly checking the chicken and sauce she had waiting on the back burner. “Yeah, we’ll all good here, too.” 

“Look at us,” Garrus said, his voice rumbling with pleasure. “Two completely different meals successfully cooked and ready to eat at the same time.” 

“We still make a good team,” she said, putting up her hand, and they high-fived. 

She couldn’t keep the grin from her face as the thumping of feet from the hallway turned into a couple of teenagers. Only a few years ago, anything like this would have seemed impossible. Now the scent of turian food was familiar, even homey, rather than strange, she kept an extra-large container of Garrus’s favorite spice in her kitchen, and the two of them could make their separate meals like a well-oiled machine. 

She couldn’t believe how lucky she was.


	17. Movie Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and the kids have movie night. From a prompt by thisonelikesaliens.

“It’s just the three of us tonight,” Renee told them, “so let’s pick a couple movies.”

“Fleet and Flotilla Five!” Lexa called out at once.

David made a retching noise.

Lexa’s mandibles clamped in, coming as close to a pout as a turian could manage. “I love Fleet and Flotilla, and it’s Aunt Tali’s favorite.”

“It’s all _sappy_ ,” David said.

“Pick one you can both agree on, and I’ll make the snacks,” Renee said firmly. She didn’t mind the Fleet and Flotilla series (the later installments of which featured just about every combination of gender one could imagine), but she didn’t want to hear them argue about it all night.

The bickering quickly subsided into whispering and giggling, and by the time she came back with the bowls of both levo and dextro snacks, both kids looked pretty pleased with themselves. “Hey, Mom, is it true you met Blasto once?” David asked.

“I met one of the several hanar who’s played Blasto, yes,” Renee said, plopping down on the couch and passing Lexa her bowl. 

“What was it like?”

Renee made a face. “Let’s just say that was a surprisingly egotistical hanar. “What are we watching?”  

Smirking, David touched his omni-tool, and the screen lit up: THE BATTLE OF THE CITADEL.

“Oh, come on, you guys!They made that while I was, um, out of commission. Nobody even believed in Reapers then. That movie is so out of date.”

“That’s what’s funny about it,” David said, voice cracking. Lexa giggled.

Teenagers. Renee sighed.

“Have you seen it?” Lexa asked.

“No,” Renee admitted. It had been too tender a subject back in 2185, when she’d first learned of the movie’s existence. To her surprise, it didn’t feel raw any more, and she was actually a little curious what the moviemakers had done with the story.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” David said.

Renee shrugged and settled back with the popcorn. “No, let’s give it a try.”

It was… well, not an awful movie. The lead actress was actually pretty good, a statuesque African with a lot of screen presence. The actor playing Kaidan was not nearly as handsome as the original, in Renee’s experience, and the turian playing Garrus had totally the wrong markings. But it left out all the messy bits, and used Wrex, Tali, and Liara mostly as comic relief, and the final battle sequences – “That is _not_ how that happened,” she said, throwing popcorn at the screen.

David and Lexa laughed as if that was the funniest thing that had happened all year. 

“Hey Mom,” David said when he’d gotten his breath back. “Did you know they made a bunch more movies about you?”

“What? No, they didn’t.”

“Well, they’re not about _you_ , they’re about ‘the Spectre,’ and they’re some kind of low-budget knock-off or something–”

“I think they mostly streamed on the extranet,” Lexa said. 

“–but they have the same actress in the first few, so yeah, it’s totally supposed to be you.”

“Let me see that,” Renee said, leaning over to take a look at his omni-tool. Sure enough, a whole string of titles scrolled up. The Spectre and the Statue of Liberty. The Spectre and the Lost City. The Spectre IV: Daughters of Illium. Nearly a dozen of them, getting increasingly improbable and ridiculous, from the looks of it. She sat back, stunned. “Nobody ever told me that.”

“Guess we know what we’re doing for our next movie night,” David said, grinning.


End file.
